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Daivasneham (Infinite love of God)…….

This is the last night I have with Maya & Nora my grand-daughters on our short visit with them. Tomorrow they have School. So they have to go to sleep early. It is already past 9:15 pm.
Nobody will be here, in this house, to say “goodbye” to us when we leave tomorrow around 11:00 am. My kids would have gone to work as early as 7:00 am. Both Maya & Nora would have gone to School by 8:30 am.
Maya had promised me when she visited us for summer vacation that she would be ready with a Malayalam Song, I already gave her to record for me to upload to the YouTube. But it didn’t happen… Last three days I was with her, but we were too busy doing other stuff. Now it is too late to practice or to record… I know that she didn’t practice it well enough to record.
She called me to her room, asked me to sit down in front of the iPad to play the music and an iPhone to record it. As soon as she started, in the first take itself, I knew that she has not practiced it enough to record. So I said,
“May be you can practice it some more, record it later & then send to me”
Her face became gloomy.
“No, Pancho, No! I will practice one more time and then we will record it.”
She insisted. But I didn’t want to rush her.
“No hurry. Take it easy. We can do it later”
She still insisted. Her eyes are pleading…
So we started to record it.
Nora was there to prompt the starting …
“One, two, three”, Nora said and started the iPad.
I started the iPhone. Maya started her song. Then Nora got up and walked around in the room.
Everything went well till the 6th line. Then there was a mix up.
Maya stopped.
Maya shouted at Nora,
“It is your entire fault. You broke my concentration. When you are going through my stuff, how can I concentrate?”
“I didn’t touch any of your stuff.” Nora screamed back.
“It is all right. We will do it again.”
One more and one more…
More mix ups. That was the end.
Tears started rolling down on Maya’s cheeks.
She blew her nose.
She tried hard not to show her emotions.
She sobbed quietly.
“It is all right Maya. You can do it some other time. I understand. I am not upset. It is already late. Don’t you have to get up early tomorrow morning to go to school? You may go to sleep now.” I tried hard to calm her down.
Nora was standing still not knowing what to say.
Between the sobs, Maya was repeating…
“No Pancho, I want to do it now. Otherwise I will not forgive myself. I know how much you love to hear it. If I don’t do it now, I will never be able to do it.”
I didn’t know what to do. She went on and on.
Then I said,
“Ok. Then read the lyrics one more time to make sure no more mix up of lines. Don’t sing, just read.”
I am not a music director. I have never done this before. I have learned some songs when I was young. I had learned classical music for few years, when I was a Teenager, just to please my mother. I was not a talented musician. As I told Nora, when she was shying away from singing, saying she was not talented.
“Not everybody is born talented. Very few are… Others study & train a lot to reach that talented state. I myself was not at all talented in music. I took lessons and became a good singer and competed in School competitions and won first and second prizes many times. So Nora, with proper training you can also become a good singer.”
Nora listened to me. It made sense to her. She learned two songs with Maya and I recorded them.
Maya wiped her face. She read the lyrics.
“Are you ready, Maya?” I asked.
“Now you wait for 5 minutes. My face is all puffed up… I will look pathetic in the video.”
She ran to the bathroom. Washed her face, wiped with a towel and came back.
Her face was all puffed up. She still had teary eyes.
“Maya, Are you not in bed, yet?”
I could hear Priya, their mother, yelling from downstairs.
“Tomorrow you have school. It is almost 10:00 pm. Go to bed.”
We were silent for a minute.
“Ok, Maya, we will do it now. It will not take more than 5 minutes to record it.”
“Ok, Nora, you prompt…”
“Ready, one, two, three…” Nora prompted, then started the iPad.
I started the recording.
This time, Maya did it right. No mix up… no mistake.
It may not be that great to hear. But she did it for me. That made the difference.
I don’t know what I did to deserve this great love.
Here is Maya’s song on YouTube: DAIVASNEHAM…